1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method using a recording head, on which a plurality of recording elements are arranged, when recording. In particular, the present invention relates to a recording apparatus such as an ink-jet recording apparatus and the like using the recording head by ejecting ink from a plurality of nozzles arranged thereon, when recording.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Recently recording apparatuses employing an ink-jet method for recording on a recording medium by ejecting ink from nozzles arranged on the recording head, have been widely applied to printers, facsimile machines, copying machines and so forth. Particularly, color printers capable of recording color images by using a plurality of colors have been remarkably widely used as images of high quality have been enhanced with progress of the color printers.
In addition to high quality images, a higher recording rate is an important factor for the recording apparatus to spread widely so that liquid droplet ejection driving frequencies of recording heads have been raised higher along with the increasing number of nozzles arranged in the recording heads for higher-rate recording.
However, in ink-jet apparatuses, sometimes statuses, such as so-called “non-eject” status, where ink droplets can not be ejected, are caused by dust entered into nozzles of the recording head during production of the head and deteriorated nozzles due to a long period use, deteriorated elements for ejecting ink and so forth. In the case of the non-eject status caused by deteriorated nozzles or elements, it is likely that the non-eject status happens casually when the recording apparatuses are in use.
In some cases statuses where ejecting directions of ink droplets are deviated largely from a desired direction (hereinafter also referred as “twisted ejection”) and statuses where ejecting volumes of ink droplets are different largely from a desired volume (hereinafter also referred as “dispersion in droplet diameter”) are observed instead of non-eject statuses. Since such deteriorated nozzles largely deteriorate quality of recorded images, these nozzles cannot be employed for recording. Hereinafter such nozzles are also included in and explained as the non-eject statuses.
Such non-eject statuses and so forth were not so problematic in the past, since non-eject status generating frequencies could be suppressed by modifying manufacturing conditions and the like. However, the non-eject statuses have become problems not to be ignored, as nozzle numbers have been increased for the above-mentioned higher-rate recording.
In order to manufacture recording heads which do not include nozzles at the non-eject statuses and excellent recording heads which hardly cause the non-eject statuses, manufacturing costs will be increased, which leads to higher cost recording heads.
When the non-eject statuses occur, defects such as white streaks and the like are observed in recorded images. In order to compensate such white streaks, techniques such that white streaks are compensated by recording with other normal nozzles by utilizing a divided recording method where the recording head is scanned a plurality of times for recording.
However, in order to attain the above-mentioned higher-rate recording, it is preferable to finish recording by one scanning, so called “one path recording”, but it is very difficult to compensate unrecorded portions due to the non-eject statuses or to make such portions unrecognizable in the one path recording. In another recording method for recording by executing a plurality of scanning on a predetermined area in a recording medium, so called “multi scan”, sometimes it is difficult to compensate completely depending on positions or the number of non-eject nozzles.